Apartheid. USA 1988

Octobers 5, 1987:

President Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in the United States has engulfed the White House in a heated debate and has been stirring Washington politics for weeks. Columnist Tom Wicker of the Times highlighted an interesting aspect of the controversy in his essay, ‘Bork and Blacks.’ ‘If any one factor seems more responsible than another for the desperate straits of the Bork nomination, it is the new voting power of blacks in the conservative South. As Jack Bass of the University of Mississippi pointed out in an article on the Op-Ed page of the Times September 21, 1987, ‘none of the 16 Southern Democratic senators can expect to be supported by a majority of the white voters in their states: too many of those white voters have migrated into the conservative Southern Republican parties, or will support more conservative Republican candidates in a general election. These Democratic senators - like all five of those first elected in Southern States last year, each of whom was

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strongly opposed by Ronald Reagan - must depend on black voters if they are to put together winning majorities. Blacks, in the South like anywhere else, are strongly opposed to Judge Bork's confirmation (to the Supreme Court). Southern blacks are a prime reason why the Southern Democrats who might once have supported any conservative nominee now are lining up to vote against one of the most conservative nominees of modern times. A more graphic result of Southern blacks' new voting strength could hardly be imagined.’¹⁵²

An internal memorandum issued by the New York City Police Department said that racial, ethnic, and sexual slurs made between police employees would not be tolerated and would be investigated by the department's office of equal employment opportunity. Detective Roger Abel, president of the black officers association, the Guardians, said ‘There is an undercurrent of racial tension in the department. Sometimes derogatory comments are written onto lockers or made directly to black police officers.’^153.

152 The New York Times, by commentator Tom Wicher on the Op-Ed page

153. The New York Times, from a report by Howard W. French